


choose.

by xxELF21xx



Series: sides [2]
Category: Pocket Monsters: HeartGold & SoulSilver | Pokemon HeartGold & SoulSilver Versions, Pocket Monsters: Red & Green & Blue & Yellow | Pokemon Red Green Blue Yellow Versions
Genre: (from arceus), Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M, Manipulation, Possession, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, theres a lot of heavy stuff in this one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26579671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxELF21xx/pseuds/xxELF21xx
Summary: Choice is an illusion.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Ookido Green | Blue Oak/Red
Series: sides [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1927696
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	choose.

**Author's Note:**

> to be read alongside with "fatigue.", it can also be read as a standalone!

Choice is an illusion.

There are three options in front of him: red, blue, green. There are three choices for him to pick: stay alive (barely), thrive, decay. 

Presented to him on a silver platter, he is given time to think. To work out the pros and cons, the mental math, the emotions. He is given so much time, in fact, he doesn’t realise when the sky opens its eyes again, light spilling into his tiny window in honeyed strands. 

The being in front of him, he muses(?), glows brighter than the sun. Brighter, but it hurts to look. Hurts to open his eyes. 

He is given three options. 

But choice; it’s an illusion. 

‘No,’ his voice hasn’t yet settled, wispy in the way incense gives off smoke, so soft it can hardly be heard but pulling a presence all the same. ‘I don’t want them.’ 

Awash in irritation (not his), he watches the sun crawl higher, casting her light onto the streets below. Children are beginning to fill the spaces, bright smiles and bodies healthy. He envies them, greatly. 

_ No?  _ It asks, commanding attention he doesn’t want to give. But choice is an illusion. He looks, forced to stare as the glow whites out the sun’s gold, anger contained in four walls and beeping machines. 

He shakes his head. 

Choice is an illusion. He is forced to accept. 

He is barely five when he loses his voice to chanting a strange tune over and over again. 

Choice is an illusion. 

He repeats it everyday, dull eyes tracking Daisy’s every movement, afraid that a crack of lightning might take her away. Afraid that she will be snatched like his parents, his cousins, his relatives. He is afraid, and so he remains silent. 

Daisy presents him with three options: cereal and milk, toast and jam, rice and last night’s dinner. He is asked to choose. 

He shrugs, body weak from the being living inside him, curious at the variety. 

It has been weeks since he last had cereal. 

He chooses toast and jam.

Choice is an illusion. 

Presented to them are three options: the orphanage, be split up (because nobody would want a demented child like him), or taken into government custody. 

They never stood a chance. He knows they’re children, small nobodies in the grand scheme of events, that the choices in front of him (in front of  _ them,  _ it corrects) are just for show. Because “someone” has to “care”. 

He is resigned to his fate, psyche reeling from the loss of his only family member (it’s just  _ us  _ now, it rejoices).

But choice? It’s an illusion? 

They are taken in by an old man, who sounds familiar and looks familiar and  _ is  _ familiar. Family. He’s  _ family. _

(It grows silent.) 

If choice was an illusion… who’s to say he can’t make his own?

_ Do not befriend him.  _

The warning thunders in his head, seizing his body and forcing him to scatter books onto the courtyard’s floor. Mechanically, he twists to see the poor child that has caught its ire, a lone boy who just moved in, who won’t speak and won’t look at anyone. 

But their eyes meet. And the boy smiles (it’s weak and feeble and all the things it doesn’t like, but he  _ smiled _ ). 

He smiles back. 

It begins to torment him, with stronger visions and stranger dreams and violent phrases nobody can decipher. 

What was once blurred, muted, forgotten daily -- it is ingrained so cleanly into his brain now. 

But still, Red stays. 

Stays with him as he begins to shiver from the blinding fog of Galar, the harsh sun of Alola, the chilling cold of Lavender Town. Red stays with him as he begins to speak of lands from afar, of Kalos and “fairy-types”, Hoenn and its war with fire and water, Unova and the horrors of power.

Red stays. And he  _ knows.  _

Red is presented with a choice: leave him, or suffer in misery and forced isolation. 

Red tells the being in his mind to fuck off. 

He is presented with a choice: charmander, bulbasaur, squirtle. 

His grandfather has teased him about his starter pokemon for  _ years,  _ never allowing him near the lab and encouraging him to lovingly pet Charizard’s snout and maybe load her up with too many treats. 

He wants charmander. 

(It’s quiet, in his mind. It doesn’t have a preference, it loves all its children equally.)

Choice is an illusion. 

A fragile layer of glass, cracking and then shattering into tiny little shards that embed themselves deep inside his heart as he sees two balls instead of three. 

‘I don’t want to,’ his voice is still raspy. Where is Red? 

Grandfather pushes the pokedex into his curled fists, and the answer is set. 

Squirtle hovers near him as he cries, and cries, and  _ shakes.  _

( _ I do not approve,  _ it’s obviously frowning, noticing how tiny his starter is.) 

_ I do not approve.  _

His fingers fidget uncontrollably at the PC, mind split in two. 

On one half, is  _ his  _ desired team. The pokemon that beckoned to him, that looked devastatingly fragile but powerful all the same. 

On the other half, is  _ its  _ desired team. The pokemon that were, without a doubt, the strongest and most terrifying. The powerhouses that were immune to pretty much everything, and would ensure a swift and sure victory in any scenario. 

Nurse Joy casts him a worried look as the yells grow louder and louder still, fighting for control over  _ his  _ body. 

It may have been just five minutes (‘all trainers must ultimately decide who will be their companions, so do take your time!’) for her, and everyone else in the centre, but it’s eons for him. 

In the end, it admits defeat, anger thrumming like war drums as blood thickens and iron hits his nose. 

He has won, and he will continue to win.

Choice will not be an illusion if he was never given any to begin with.

He trains, and trains, and  _ trains  _ so much that it hardly has the time to infiltrate his body, his actions, his mind. 

He trains until his sight is hazy and the ground beneath threatens to eat him whole, legs giving way to dirt and throat scratched raw by commands. His arms are limp, numb of all feeling and he’s probably going to get very sick when he wakes up tomorrow.

Except he won’t. Because he’s never gotten sick ever since that day, when the sun’s golden strands gave way to a holy light and his future was forcibly extended -- beyond four walls and beeping machines -- and he became trapped in a prison that was his own body. 

It will never let him fall ill to anything; frail as his body may be, to the elements, the fatigue, and everything else in between. It cannot have its own vessel fail. He knows, when he trudges into the nearest pokecentre and collapses on a bed and falls into another nightmare, it will heal him until he is beyond the peak of health. 

And the cycle will continue. 

And continue.

And continue. 

Because choice won’t be an illusion if he’s never given it a chance to speak out.

He can never outsmart his tormentor. 

Just when he thinks he’s finally managed to break the cycle, regain control, it strikes him with a searing iron that is his reality. 

Nothing was truly  _ his  _ to begin with.

Not his team, the six that were with him through rise and fall. Not his training regimen, the ones he built specifically to shut it down. Not even his  _ friend.  _

Red is more than capable. Red is everything he could have been and so much  _ more.  _

Red is who it chose to right the world’s wrongs and silence his pitiful cries and prayers. 

He can’t seem to react with any emotion, digesting the fact as if it were a normal enough occurrence. (It should have been; if he’d paid enough attention to the prophecies and its warnings, none of this would have happened. None.)

But Red can. 

Standing before him, Red is pulsing in anger and confusion. It’s as if he didn’t know who he was facing: the boy he’s “friends” with, or the one pulling all the strings. 

‘Let’s get this over with,’ it’s his own voice, his own thoughts, that speaks out. For once, it remains relatively silent in his head, letting him take the reins of the battle. 

Choice isn’t an illusion when he’s not given a single option. 

He knows how this battle will end. 

He’s known ever since Red gave him a smile, eons ago. 

(And even though  _ he’s _ the one in the battle, giving orders and fretting over his team,  _ it’s  _ the one that’s truly in control.)

  
  


He’s running from his duties again. But it’s whatever. 

It doesn’t matter if he’s in the Gym or not, the league was put on hold to wipe out any remains of Team Rocket. His own Gym was undergoing a revamp, and he isn’t particularly inclined to listen to construction work from dawn to dusk.

Anger is still thrumming in his veins from Red’s departure, not that  _ he  _ was angry or anything. Disappointed, surely; confused, maybe. But he wasn’t mad at Red, who was forced to become someone he didn’t want to be.

He’s not really sure where his feet take him, too focused on capping a lid at its rage, but an unsettling dread starts to weigh heavy on his shoulders as his footsteps fall heavier and heavier on the path. 

Lavender Town’s tower looms over him, the skies overcast and gloomy. 

_ Green, le--  _

Its voice is cut off by inhumane screeches, body frozen in place as his hearing shatters. 

Mourning, grieving, crying, moaning. Wisps of what once were roams the road in front of him, lost eyes staring directly at him, figures fast approaching. Loud cackles mix with crazed screaming and wronged (premature) deaths. Paws (hands?) of all sizes beckon him closer,  _ listen to our stories,  _ and his own hand meekly reaches out. Fog drapes over his shoulder like a warm cloak, and-- 

He gasps awake, frantically scanning every corner of the room he’s in. 

Faces he knows -- it’s Gramps and Daisy,  _ just  _ Gramps and Daisy -- flock to him like the dead, hands reach out, eyes frenzied, everything is closing in on him far too fast and he still can’t  _ hear anything help me help me i’m scared please help me--  _

‘Don’t touch him.’ 

**Author's Note:**

> im looking back at what i've written and none of this makes actual sense to me.


End file.
